Back then, very few will focus their research on the use case of the coin. So I really don't blame the OP as we had that kind of thinking before. But then more and more coins were launched and turned out to be crap. And so most of us learned lessons from these crap projects.
you are absolutely right. Op and people who did (or do) the same don't have to blame themselves for such mistake - crypto was absolutely unknown territory for each of us and no one knew whats going to happen
now we have the knowledge so gotta make less mistakes
Mistakes will help us to find out new things in crypto, of course, even I have faced many challenges while choosing crypto and lost a lot of money. Instead of investing in ICO's and IEO's better trade already listed coins which have already launched their main net and it will help the coin to generate some decent volume.